St. Patrick’s Day. I am green for the occasion. Frankly, I could have done a better job myself simply rolling in the freshly mown spring grass.

The meal this evening: Green pasta with smoked salmon, creme fraiche and vodka….vodka?

I suppose it’s a better choice than Irish Whiskey. At least vodka is flavorless. A reflection on the Russian culture? Makes a dog think.

The cook tosses a handful or two of baby spinach from the garden into the churning pasta dough, passes it through a hand-cranked cutter and out come stands of verdant linguine, like the long, slender grasses of mid-summer.

The sauce: Creme fraiche to begin. Fraiche because it’s straight from the cow next-door, thick and rich; ice cream without the sugar.

Vodka we have discussed. Gives the dish a piquant edginess. Another Soviet quality, perhaps?

The two, warmer together over a low flame lend a sweetness to the kitchen that hovers in the air like the aroma of some heady, unnamed blossom. Unwrap a package of tender, gently smoked Irish salmon and the kitchen becomes a perfumery. Heaven.

Cook folds the salmon pieces into the sauce. Checks for flavor, swiping a privileged finger through the mix, adds a splash more vodka to both the sauce and her glass of fresh-pressed juice. I guess the Russian liquid must have SOME merit.

The green pasta is boiled in salty water in the time it takes me to make it to the corner of the yard to water the basil, and return.

Linguine drained, sauced and served with a generous sprinkling of fresh parmesan and a glass of crisp Italian wine.

I am off to the City of Water to do some research. Venice in January: like an iceberg in a snowstorm and tourist-free.

Steamy bars laden with the scent of tobacco and milk chocolate. Trattorie packed with bodies warming to a plate of squid-ink pasta or creamy truffle risotto.

Gondolieri standing in their boats, wrapped up like winter hams, waiting for business. Ice between my toes. Frost on my snout. Pregnant mist pushing its long, fleshy fingers between the towers and canals.

I know only roughly (or ruff-ly, as is the case) my plot. Certain things have to occur: suspense, romance, danger—and magnificent meals. Truffles will take part as it is winter in northern Italy. And a French-African Chihuahua I once met will play in.

Write what you know is what I say, until you no longer know. Then make it up. It’s fiction. All life is a type of fiction, after all. And the living, nothing more than writers. Comforting to know one can always change the ending. All dogs understand this.

To a small dog, spring means more sun, less mud, sprouts in the garden and spring lambs.

Together it’s the perfect formula for a basket of fresh Fave beans,

a chunk of salty Pecorino straight from the mother of a newborn sheep and a plot of dry grass under the shade of a Chestnut tree with a glass of Friulian wine.

Available in most farmer’s markets this time of year, the fava bean is a bitter, crunchy vegetable that, when eaten raw from the shell and paired with a great Pecorino cheese, describes the very flavor of spring.

Or try it in risotto…with Pecorino.

Or in pasta…with Pecorino.

Or sauteed, pureed, served as a bed for bitter Rapini, drizzled with a fine olive oil….and topped with shaved Pecorino.

Grazia is in the kitchen again.Today it’s hot and muggy and the flame on the stove is gone.Today dinner will be cold.

She and I go to the morning market before the heat begins to rise.Campo di Fiori is crowded with tourists and Romans, alike.The vegetable stands overflow with summer produce.

Verdant basil, tiny ruby tomatoes, sweet onions, baby green beans: the meal will be simple and sumptuous, the aim of most Italian cuisine. A loaf of fine country bread and a large jar of olive oil soaked Mediterranean tuna.

Did I mention I love tomatoes?I pull the sweet cherry variety off the bushy plants that sit in clay pots around our terrazzo…just the low fruit.I’m allowed that without being chided.But the tomatoes on the terrazzo are still green so, today, we buy Campo di Fiori fare.

While Grazia brushes slices of fresh bread with olive oil, grills them on one side, then rubs them with a clove of garlic, I search the floor below the tossing for bits of anything that might have escaped the bowl….

The salad is chilled until dinner time.The toasts are put to one side in each bowl.

Balsamic vinegar and freshly grated parmesan is added over each serving at the last minute.And the empty bowls are mine….